Matt’s Favorites: TechTown Venture Deadline Looms, No Comment Sites Proliferate, And Much More

So what’s the latest from the world of wonderment that is science and technology? Well, strap on your swimmies, kids, today it’s gonna get deep…

* First of all, something local: The deadline for applying for TechTown’s Labs Venture Accelerator is Monday, Sept. 30. Think you’ve got what it takes for this rigorous, boot camp style program for would-be startups? Check it out here.

* So should Web sites accept comments or not? Here’s a look at the latest trends. Given the incredible amount of vitriol and hatred in comment sections, it’s no surprise that more sites are turning comments off…

* In the latest report on the subject, top scientists from around the world say they’re about as certain that global warming is a real, man-made threat as they are that cigarettes kill. They’re as sure about climate change as they are about the age of the universe. They say they’re more certain about climate change than they are that vitamins make you healthy or that dioxin in Superfund sites is dangerous. They’ll even put a number on how certain they are about climate change: it’s 95 percent.

* A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut blasted off from Kazakhstan Wednesday, climbed smoothly into orbit and docked with the International Space Station after an abbreviated six-hour rendezvous, boosting the lab’s crew back to six.

* Samsung announced Thursday that the 2014 edition of the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet will be available in the United States on Oct. 10. The electronics giant unveiled the device at the Unpacked Episode 2 event in Berlin. The next-generation tablet features a 10.1-inch display with a 2,560 x 1,600 pixel resolution, 8 megapixel camera, 1080p HD video recording, Android OS version 4.3 “Jelly Bean” and improved S Pen capabilities.

* At least some of the 200 million people who have downloaded iOS 7 to this point aren’t so pleased with what they’ve found. Apple’s iPhone and iPad owners have been taking to the company’s forums over the past week to complain about iOS 7‘s new parallax and zoom features. Many of the folks in the forum said that they’ve experienced motion sickness, vertigo, nausea, and headaches due to the motion on-screen.

* And Apple’s iPhone 5S may be scarce until Christmas, an analyst says, following the pattern of last year’s iPhone 5.

* Perhaps Google Street View should be renamed “Google Anything View.” Google’s wandering cameras have now made their way into CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the atom-smashing wonder located under the Franco-Swiss border.

* The Galaxy Gear is a rumor no longer. Samsung today officially fired its first salvo in the wearable tech wars, unveiling its smartwatch at the IFA show in Berlin, Germany. The product will be released around the world on 25 September at the same time as the new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 — except for customers in the US and Japan, who will need to wait until October.

* Most of Thursday’s coverage of Bill Gates’ latest Harvard talk — including CNet’s — has rightly honed in on his acknowledgment that the control-alt-delete login was “a mistake.” Good for a headline, but there’s another big one buried in what was a fascinating interview conducted before a live audience with David Rubenstein, the co-founder and co-CEO of The Carlyle Group. Turns out Microsoft knew that it had a sucker in its negotiations with IBM right from the start.

* Well, I guess this might be OK, if nobody tells me I’m eating insects and I don’t know I’m eating insects. (But of course I like shrimp, lobster and crab, and what are they but great big bugs?)